WILMINGTON — With a growing student body, they’re going to need a bigger school.
The Wilmington Christian Academy on Davids Drive broke ground on an expansion to their location in August. The newest addition to the academy will serve as a cafeteria and multipurpose room, including using it for theater productions, for which they usually had to go off-site.
“It’s been in the works behind the scenes for a while. It rested for a while because we didn’t need it. But all of a sudden we needed it,” said Administrator Matt Black.
Around four years ago they had a student body of 42 and it has grown to 120. According to him, they’re still getting more students wanting to enroll.
“We’ve grown to the point where we need more room,” said Black. “Now we’re blessed to be able to have this huge expansion of the school.”
The genesis of this project started when Black saw student numbers growing to the point where they converted their lunchroom into two classrooms.
He believes that the influx of students was because of word of mouth spreading on what they provide to other parts of the county and outside the county. Black said that they’re not only a distinctly Christian operation in every aspect, as he described it, but said they’re also an academy.
“An academy is a step up. We’re a bit more detailed and strenuous than a public school,” he said.
Originally the hope was for it to be completed in early December but now it’s scheduled to open on Feb. 1. The reason for this, according to Black, is because the building was expanded from 80 feet long to 121 feet long.
